WOMEN'S MINISTRIES BLOG

I was born during the Khmer Rouge, a genocide that was responsible for the killing of millions of Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. During those four years, more than half my family members died. Fortunately for me, my parents fled Cambodia, and I was born in a refugee camp in the neighboring Southeast Asian country, Thailand. It was there where my parents were introduced to the gospel for the first…

I stand in the oldest cemetery in the city I’ve lived in most of my life. Generations of my family—linked by blood and marriage and adoption—are buried in this ground. Cemeteries are strange places. They hold the physical remains of human beings. They hold memories and stories and griefs and joys and no-longer-answerable questions. They hold connections one to another, long lost to present knowledge. I read names and years…

It had been a long, hard day full of unexpected hurdles at work and even bigger parenting hurdles waiting for me at home. I was sad, frustrated and disheartened. I pulled out the cutting board to prep for dinner and began to chop with an intensity that matched my emotions. And when there was nothing left to chop, and my eyes were beginning to well up (and not from the…

One January I noticed my daughter was missing a little hair on the top of her head. It was right at her hairline and could mostly be ignored. Soon that little spot became so noticeable that I called my nurse friend. Three spots turned to five and her back hairline was suddenly gone.

On Sunday, June 13, 2021, the President and First Lady of the United States attended Sunday services at Sacred Heart Church, St. Ives in Cornwall. The two were in town for the G7 Summit in which talks among world leaders centered in part around concern over global warming and care for the planet. Father Philip Dyson had not been given advance notice of his prestigious guests and, according to The Guardian, “admitted he was slightly nervous while conducting the service.”

Every twenty-six years, on a Sunday morning in February, my church invites me to take the pulpit. At least, that’s the pattern thus far.

Evangelism. It’s never been something I felt myself gifted in. It didn’t come naturally. Kind of embarrassing for a missionary to admit, huh? But I realized a number of years ago that when it comes to the Christian walk, evangelism is a RESULT of something, not the something itself.

Here we are at the beginning of a new season. People are emerging. This summer promises to be a little more full than last summer. We are hoping to “get back to normal.” Except . . . we are not the same. We have been changed.

Do you ever stand in front of your bathroom sink and peel the contacts from your eyeballs with relief? I’ve done that more times than I can count—most recently, oh, about ten minutes ago. Sometimes it’s because my eyes are dry from a long day of staring at the computer screen.

I think it was providential. In winter 2020, I read John Mark Comer’s remarkable, relatable book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. He talked about how our lives were so crazy, so filled to the brim and then followed with marvelous chapters on Silence, Solitude, Sabbath, Simplicity and Slowing. I was taken with the goodness of those ideas.